Well, I have browsed over the Compiled Languages forum several times, just to remember that it was post-less... until now!

In other news... the VB .NET language fits into both the Interpreted Languages and Compiled Languages, but, is only interpreted during developmental stages. During build, it is compiling an executable, effectively making it a compiled language at this point. I have recently been messing around with the Visual Basic Express 2008 Visual Studio, and it is a fine-ass piece of work. It hands you countless different controls that a user can make visually appealing by drag and drop... rather than set the x, y coordinates or general alignment in some messy, endless mass of code. It opts the user with the latest and greatest methods of going about creating your programs, and is an extremely powerful development environment.

We are using VB .NET 2008 Visual Studio in my Computer Sciences course, and it saddens me to see how few students realize the outstanding power that this environment has to offer.

Well, now that my opinion is out there, please share your near-terrorist views that oppose what I've just stated (*cough* cereal *cough*).

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."Unverified Quote, 1945 - Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM

Actually, VB.NET is compiled at development time too, as you write the code. (see Background Compiling, Intellisense, etc)

And, CIL is human readable, and interpreted by a Virtual Machine (.NET Framework), so technically you could argue that VB.NET is an interpreted language that is compiled at development time. Crazy :] (although CIL is then sent to bytecode.. But that's like arguing NOP and 0x90 aren't the same thing)

But by all practical definitions, this is where it belongs, haha.

I personally enjoy working with the .NET framework, and am more of a VB programmer myself, as it is the base language that I grew up with. I taught myself BASIC on a Commodore, when I was ~7. Then I learned HTML, VB, Javascript, PHP, C++, JAVA, Ruby, VB.NET, C#, Classic ASP, ASM and more... which brings me to where I am now at 21, working as a software developer.

People don't realize how rapidly you can develop applications in .NET. Some despise the bloat of the VM, but you can write fairly fast code, and you save a huge amount of time in development. Some people hate VB, and I know why (I used VB3 through VB6), but I can usually destroy any C# trolls that come my way..

I think if your fellow comp-sci students would appreciate the language and accessibility of libraries if they were to start out in C++.. (although maybe they did already?) People quickly get frustrated with writing console apps, and when they realize the power of creating entire UI based applications with a few clicks, there's a certain cool factor that goes with it.. ^^

Ah, yes, I completely forgot to mention the intellisense feature; which is also quite helpful if you have iffy memory, or unsure of what methods to use.

@hexhaxWe started out with one of the earlier versions in VB that was built into Excel... which was a nightmare. I could understand how, after trying this, one would never want to touch VB again. Also, last semester, in my Computer Engineering course, we were to write programs on a Commodore CCS64 emulator that printed our names across the screen. After learning the basics of several high-leveled languages, and gotten quite fluent in several, low-level code like this completely threw me off balance. I enjoyed the challenge, and, not to sound egotistical, I am probably the best student in my class, possibly school, in the art of code 'n' such... But who knows. I did have fun trying to explain to my classmates about what some of the crap that we were writing meant.

Anywho... in my opinion, VB.NET > Machine Code

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."Unverified Quote, 1945 - Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM

YayPython wrote:Oh god...Sorry to crash the party, but the size of the framework is a HUGE turnoff for me...

Haha, very true. I personally enjoy writing very small code.. Small PE's and assemblies make me happy :]

Really, when it comes down to it, it's all about the application of your, er, application. Are you writing code for an ATmega168? You only have a program space of 16KB, with 1KB of RAM and a 16MHz processor. You probably won't be using the .NET framework, or a Java VM, even if they were designed for embedded hardware (.NETCF or MIDP). Enjoy your C.

Are you writing an installer for the application you wrote last night for quick distribution? Why not use a RAD tool so you can get it out the door faster? There is no reason to spend forty extra hours of development to implement it in C++.

Are you writing a pixel shader for the new game you are developing? That probably won't be in a managed language.. I'd like to see one try! But you can probably afford some higher level libraries, such as file streams, etc..

That backup script you run nightly to pull down databases from your live server probably isn't written in any of the above; it's most likely a bash script.

Each language has its pros and it's cons, but it goes beyond that. Each language has its pros and cons per application, and knowing what languages are meant for is just another part of programming. I see you like Python :]

Haha, I am quite fond of Python too, if I do say. I haven't used it lately because I've been enveloped in a Steganography program that I'm working on in VB at school... and my laptop has bitten the dust, so I am forced to use my family computer which is developer-unfriendly. I've started looking into Perl recently, and have progressed fairly well. C++ was my learning language... after HTML... but that doesn't count.

Also, the Visual Studio compiler outputs an installer that removes the hassle of making your own, although it could use some work. I would prefer something like what you described over it.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."Unverified Quote, 1945 - Thomas J. Watson, Founder of IBM

Well, I have a VB application and wanted to turn it into raw code. I got a decompiler but it couldn't function as I hoped. It wasn't able to get the whole app. decompiled. Does anyone know where to get a powerful decompiler ??